Svetina Saša
Institute of Biophysics, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Jožef Stefan Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Front Physiol. 2020 Jun 9;11:544. doi: 10.3389/fphys.2020.00544. eCollection 2020.
The red blood cell (RBC) membrane contains a mechanosensitive cation channel Piezo1 that is involved in RBC volume homeostasis. In a recent model of the mechanism of its action it was proposed that Piezo1 cation permeability responds to changes of the RBC shape. The aim here is to review in a descriptive manner different previous studies of RBC behavior that formed the basis for this proposal. These studies include the interpretation of RBC and vesicle shapes based on the minimization of membrane bending energy, the analyses of various consequences of compositional and structural features of RBC membrane, in particular of its membrane skeleton and its integral membrane proteins, and the modeling of the establishment of RBC volume. The proposed model of Piezo1 action is critically evaluated, and a perspective presented for solving some remaining experimental and theoretical problems. Part of the discussion is devoted to the usefulness of theoretical modeling in studies of the behavior of cell systems in general.
红细胞（RBC）膜含有一种机械敏感阳离子通道Piezo1，它参与红细胞体积的稳态调节。在最近提出的其作用机制模型中，认为Piezo1阳离子通透性对红细胞形状的变化有反应。本文旨在以描述性方式回顾先前关于红细胞行为的不同研究，这些研究构成了该提议的基础。这些研究包括基于膜弯曲能量最小化对红细胞和囊泡形状的解释、对红细胞膜组成和结构特征（特别是其膜骨架和整合膜蛋白）各种后果的分析，以及红细胞体积建立的建模。对所提出的Piezo1作用模型进行了批判性评估，并提出了解决一些剩余实验和理论问题的观点。讨论的一部分致力于理论建模在一般细胞系统行为研究中的有用性。
